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| The first Porsche to be presented at Pebble Beach Posted: 07 Aug 2008 07:50 AM CDT  Officially known as Type 356-001, Ferry Porsche's design concept took shape through the leadership of Karl Rabe, Porsche's talented chief designer who worked alongside Ferry's father to develop the original Volkswagen (VW). Starting with a hand-built tubular steel frame, engineers fitted already existing VW components including the suspension, headlights, clutch, gearbox, cable-operated brakes, worm-gear steering, and various small parts. The basic Volkswagen air-cooled, 1.31-liter flat-four engine put out just 25 horsepower at 3,300 rpm, so the skilled Porsche team enlarged the bore from 70 to 75 mm, increased compression from 5.8:1 to 7.0:1, and added slightly larger inlet valves and ports and twin carburetors, boosting output to between 35 and 40 horsepower. The engine and transaxle were fitted into the frame in such a way that the engine ended up positioned in front of the rear axles with the transaxle trailing behind, making this a true mid-engine design. Mated to a four-speed gearbox, the drivetrain proved to be both lightweight and reliable.  |
| 2009 Toyota Yaris US pricing announced Posted: 07 Aug 2008 07:30 AM CDT  All Yaris grades will now feature a number of standard safety features, including anti-lock brake system (ABS) with Electronic Brake Force Distribution (EBD), driver and front passenger front seat-mounted side airbags, and front and rear side curtain airbags. New exterior colors for the 2009 Yaris include Zephyr Blue Metallic and Blue Streak Metallic on Sedan and Yellow Jolt and Carmine http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carmine Red Metallic on Liftback. Prices for the Yaris three-door Liftback models range from $12,205 for the Base grade with four cylinder engine and manual five-speed transmission to $14,825 for the S grade with four cylinder engine and four-speed automatic transmission. The all-new five-door Liftback model prices range from $13,305 for the Base grade with four cylinder engine and four-speed automatic transmission to $15,125 for the S grade with four cylinder engine and four-speed automatic transmission. Yaris Sedan model pricing ranges from $12,965 for the Base grade with four cylinder engine and manual five-speed transmission to $15,880 for the S grade with four cylinder engine and four-speed automatic transmission.  |
| Tragedy: Pininfarina boss dies in motorcycle crash! Posted: 07 Aug 2008 07:13 AM CDT  The world’s auto industry stands still today, as the head of the famous Italian coachbuilder, Pininfarina, died in a road accident. 51 year old Andrea Pininfarina was involved in an accident in Trofarello near Turin. Police stated that he was riding a motorbike when he was involved in a collision with a Ford Fiesta. The Pininfarina Chief Executive, who was a part of the family business since 1983 and in current position since 2001, leaves behind a wife, two sons and a daughter. The company is expected to have a press release later today. Our regrets to go his family and friends. Rest in Peace!
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| Current generation Mini Cabrio production ends Posted: 07 Aug 2008 05:25 AM CDT  With the next generation Mini Cabrio coming next year, MINI has decided to end the production of the current model. The last car to come out of the Oxford assembly line was a MINI Cooper S Convertible Sidewalk painted in metallic White Silver that went to an US customer. Since spring 2004, since the MINI Convertible was introduced, the British company has managed to sell around 164,000 units worldwide. With more than 79,500 units, the bestselling edition was the 85 kW/115 bhp MINI Cooper Convertible, followed by the MINI Cooper S Convertible (125 kW/170 bhp), with around 56,500 units, and the MINI One Convertible (66 kW/90 bhp), with around 28,000 vehicles. The main markets for the MINI Cabrio were the UK plus Ireland, USA, Germany, Italy and Japan, ‘responsible’ for 77 percent of the total sales, while sales were pretty good in Australia, Canada, China and Russia. What’s really interesting is that you’d imagine the MINI Cabrio sales went better in sunny countries, but it’s not actually like that. For example, there were twice as much customers in the Scandinavian countries than in Greece and five times more Austrians bought the MINI Cabrio than Portuguese. Read the full press release here.  |
| Rental Lambo Gallardo acquainted with a tree Posted: 07 Aug 2008 05:04 AM CDT  If you go and rent a Lamborghini Gallardo, it’s common sense that you take care of it. It’s a supercar worth over 100,000 euros, not your average reasonably priced car. Such wasn’t the case with a group of late 20’s asian men, who attended a wedding with a whole fleet of supercars, rented of course, consisting of 3 Lamborghinis and a Bentley Continental GT. British tabloid The Sun reports that after they arrived at the wedding reception, the group of men went for a drink and started bragging about their rental cars and how one of them took a car to 160 mph. Feeling all brave, they decided to take one of the Lambos to it’s limit and immediately left the reception. What happens when you mix alcohol and a powerful car ? The car was found crashed in a tree, with no trace of the asian men. Witnesses really enjoyed the exotic crash, actually taking bits out of the car or sitting in it.
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| Lamborghini Gallardo pushed to 930 bhp by Heffner Posted: 07 Aug 2008 05:01 AM CDT  The Lamborghini Gallardo is a great car, but has always been in the shadow of it’s bigger brother, the Murcielago, performance-wise, getting a limited edition 540 bhp edition while the Murc got a 640 one. Although this power was enough for most people, Florida-based tuner Heffner decided to push the limits of the Gallardo’s engine and try to obtain the maximum power with any modification necessary. The result ? An astonishing 930 bhp (694 kW). This of course was the result of the heavy modded 5 litre V10 engine, steel cylinder liners, new pistons, polished crankshaft journals, a new twin-turbo system fitted to a custon exhaust and intake systems, twin wastegates and blow-off valves, a twin-stage electronic boost controller and the most important, a heavy duty clutch to help put all that power down. To contain the power, upgraded fuel and water pumps were also installed, as were fuel injector and a water-cooled intercooler system. Exterior changes consist of a carbon fiber rear decklid and a Superleggera inspired rear difuser and spoiler. All these mods led to a peak torque of 1032Nm (762lb-ft ), an incredible amount for a street car, that’s why Heffner also put a two stage boost controller to help maintain a steady stream of power through 1st and 2nd gear. No word about the AWD system being disabled in this car, as was with previous versions, but for this kind of power, it would definetely be needed.
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| Mazda RX9 replaces RX8 and adds hydrogen Posted: 07 Aug 2008 04:57 AM CDT The world renowed Rotary engine on the Mazda RX-8 is very likely to transform into a gas-hydrogen hybrid on the next generation, and that the hybrid model will be called RX-9 to distinguish itslef from the gas version. The downsize to this is that on hydrogen mode, power drops 20%, but Mazda hopes to introduce this as the city-mode, while it can switch on gas when full-power is needed. In terms of styling, the next generation is said to borrow elements from the Mazda Taiki concept. Mazda hopes to have this up and running by 2012, meeting the current hybrid trend spreading world-wide.
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| European Sports Car Manufacturers in danger of becoming Outlawed Posted: 07 Aug 2008 04:54 AM CDT  As the European Union is threatening to make the emissions screw even tighter, European Sports Cars Manufacturers become more and more worried about the future. As we all know, whether its a Ferrari, Maseratti or a Lamborghini, it still has up to three times the emissions of a normal car. With Proposals from the EU that targets 120 gr/km in 2012 (compared to 160gr/now) the sports car manufacturers are trying to make themselves heard. One card to play is rumored to be a tax exemption for the manufacturers that have less than 10.000 units/year (Aston, for example, hopes to have 7.500 this year) but that would be worthless for such as Lamborghini or Ferrari who are owned by larger groups (Fiat sells around 1.2 million cars each year). Voices at Lamborghini talk about the preservation of European art that talks about the continent to the world, and so it must be protected, since emissions of 120gr/km for a V12 is not likely to happen. Ferrari on the other hand talks about the fact that hybrid solutions will take much more time to become accepted by their clients, and that the ” less than 10.000 units/year exemption” would be nothing else than discrimination. Also, the fact that supercar owners only take them out on rare occasions, and the number of supercars selled each year represents an insignificant percent of total car sales, is also brought to the table of negociations. These dispute is likely to scale up to greater heights in the near future, between Sports Cars Manufacturers on one hand, The EU and Environmentalists on the other, as solutions seem to be scarce.  |
| 2010 Mercedes Benz E-class New Spyshots Posted: 07 Aug 2008 04:49 AM CDT  One of the most expected cars from MercedesBenz, the E-class was spied again. Although under heavy camouflage, we can see that the headlights are not round anymore, and from some of the pictures we can partially distinguish the dashboard. The all new angular dashboard, now includes a huge center display screen (most likely S-class “stolen” from) and also the gear-lever on the steering column was added so that the 2010 E-class will align to the M class, GL and S Class trend. The business class sedan and station-wagon is due to make its debut at the Frankfurt Motor Show, next year. With a wide selection of engines, diesels and petrol, the E-class is also expected to embrace hybrid technology, start-stop technology to fit into earlier stated plans of the manufacturer.
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| Posted: 06 Aug 2008 10:52 AM CDT  We already know that Mercedes is considering dropping the A and B Class and replace them with four new models. After last month we told you about the CLA (or the “baby CLS”), here’s another possible new car, the GLA. Though there’s no official confirmation from Mercedes, the GLA, which is a compact SUV, definetly fits in, especially with the BMW X1 and the Audi Q3 getting closer and closer to their debuts. The photo above shows a rendering published in the August issue of German car magazine Autozeitung. If the car really makes it into production, it will probably debut in 2011 and will be marketed as a 2012 model.
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